


shooting stars and satellites

by LilaacStars



Series: i will follow you into the dark [1]
Category: Miraculous Ladybug
Genre: Angst, F/M, Ghost!AU, Identity Reveal, ghost adrien, he has a pov and all so don't ya worry, he is not dead dead i mean he is dead but well you'll see, he still around
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-20
Updated: 2017-12-12
Packaged: 2018-08-08 13:31:05
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 17,718
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7759657
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/LilaacStars/pseuds/LilaacStars
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>"between two defined walls<br/> between the darkness and the light <br/>i'll find you here, i'll bring you back <br/> i'll give my all to change this path <br/>our love will remain intact<br/>please let me bring you back"</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. VACANCY SIGNS

**Author's Note:**

> This will be angsty, there will be mentions of blood/injuries and I'll talk about death, depression and grieving.  
> Every chapter will focus on a theme that will guide the chapter and will help develop the plot  
> shooting stars and satellites is the first part of the story i've created for marinette and adrien.   
> i call this the angst train in two wagons. xx

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> "when light appears it makes a deal  
> with it, a wish appears   
> destiny is a funny thing  
>  the biggest liar, that's what it is"

****Percentages, life is full of percentages. It is not a thing you are thinking about every second of the day, but every second of the day is filled with percentages.

Percentages and probabilities are such a big part of life, and no one ever gives them the importance they deserve.

Of course, when you are gambling, percentages and probabilities are all you can think about, because those little, yet insignificant terms are the only truths you can let yourself rely on, only when it comes to gambling games.

And though you can't try to manipulate them, to use them in your favor, try to understand them, you never will be able to do it.

Probabilities and percentages cannot be tamed, they just _are_ , and whoever has said that percentages and probabilities are the biggest lies the world has known, they are wrong. When you think a percentage has been cheated, that you have accomplished a manipulation, you're wrong, you have just created a new one and the one you think you have in your hands has already vanished.

Life is a percentage itself. But who wakes up thinking that?  Who lives their lives with those thoughts in mind? Only a little percentage do.

Adrien Agreste didn’t belong to the said percentage.

**xx**

 

Have you ever stopped to think what makes a day different to the one that just passed? Probably not, and why would you? There’s no reason to do it.

Days pass and it’s a new one every morning, yet you are stuck in the same routine than yesterday, and the day before, and the day before that and probably years and years before.

If you looked back probably every day looks the same, and that’s not surprising when we take into consideration that the human world has been built in routines to follow. Routines are pure human nature, no one else to blame there.

It is true that there are little details that make a difference in your days. You may find new information as the days pass once you make yourself look back, but they are still pretty much the more of the same, the similitudes are stronger than the differences.

So what makes a day memorable enough to stay locked in your memory and another day a complete waste of space in your mind? What are the reasons behind that selection? What ends up being engraved on your mind? What are things erased as words in the sand? There’s no way to tell how our minds chose, psychologist has tried and have come up with interesting theories, but have not been able to create a law. So what makes a day different? What makes it important enough to stay in your mind? We probably will never know.

Anyways, who lives thinking about those things? Who starts their days thinking what memory will be relevant for the future? Who is constantly thinking about the little things in life? Wondering if the memory of the will change something in the days to come.

No one does that, nobody has a strong reason to do it. We just live and let things happen.

Perhaps, if you knew something was about to happen, something big, _life-changing,_ a memory worth to hold, then you would pay more attention to the little things, the little moments that may seem insignificant but that could mean the world one moment later. Oh, only if we knew.

Routine is such a strong force in the human world that the feeling of something so normal and recurrent makes us brush off some of the things that could turn to be special if we cared enough.

That’s what routine does to you; makes you believe you have your tomorrows granted. There’s always a tomorrow because there was a yesterday and there is a today, so why not believe that there is something after. Yesterdays, todays and tomorrow are always the same, or so does routine makes us think.

But, here's the thing, when it comes to existing, to happen, tomorrow doesn’t have the same percentage of the days that are in the past or the days we are currently living.

Routine is a dirty liar, but one we cannot leave behind. The best friend of the time, and the one that stabs it in the back. People are consumed by routine.

And Marinette was one of those people.

**xxxx**

Adrien remembered perfectly everything about that morning, but he didn’t have much memory of the whole day that it followed…

The day had started as it always did, with the beeping sound of his alarm coming from the speakers on his phone.

Adrien loved to sleep.

Adrien hated the alarm.

But it was necessary, with such a strict schedule to follow and with his acquired cat tendencies he enjoyed and treasured the sleeping hours he got, but he couldn’t let those hours rule his day, and so the alarm came in handy.

He was very diligent when it came to following times, and so he was standing up from his bed at the second chime of the alarm.

He was in no way a morning person, but if he let the alarm keep beeping he would have to face the rage of anyone in the mansion. Not following his perfect schedule came with big consequences.

So, just like every day he did, he opened his eyes at the second chime, extended his arm to his phone and putting off the sound. He took the covers and the sheets with him and rolled down to the floor.

He crawled a little distance, letting the bed behind him and making himself to the bathroom, slowly standing up as he advanced.

He rubbed his eyes as he closed the bathroom door behind him, immediately making his way to the end of the bathroom, so he could take a warm shower.

One of his favorite morning moments, if not the only favorite moment, was the time in the shower. He was alone, in a safe warm place and no one was telling him what to do, and he hadn’t smelled a piece of cheese yet.

It was just the perfect place to be.

But just as everything did, it ended.

He went out of the shower and brushed his hair in front of the bathroom mirror, took a basket full of creams and lotions from under the sink and started his skincare routine. Ten steps were the new holy grail, and he hated that he had to follow them, but he did. Luckily, he didn’t need to shave that morning so he did not need more time in the bathroom.

Once ready, he walked to the closet.

Being the son of one of the most influent and acclaimed fashion designer in the world meant that his closet was always filled with the best clothes money could buy, and while in the hangers you could find the most elegant suits, the fanciest jackets, and the most exquisite hand-knitted sweaters, Adrien always ended up picking the first pair of clean jeans he could reach and a t-shirt.

In the winter he picked a sweater, a jacket too, but he never paid much attention to what he was wearing. He wasn’t good at fashion and he didn’t want to be. He knew names and a few technical terms, but that was because he was drowned in fashion, it was impossible to not pick up a few things over the years, but his fashion sense was a nonexistent thing, that stuff couldn’t be learned.

If somebody else didn’t buy and organize his clothes, he would probably end up in ridiculous clothes that no one could ever wear, and that probably would cause a heart attack on a good amount of people. His father and, his lovely classmate, Marinette would be part of that group.

 

With a light pair of jeans, a white t-shirt with a little ladybug on the pocket, and a pair of black vans, Adrien was ready to start his day.

Before leaving his room, he woke up Plagg, with a piece of camembert in hand for him to devour. He waited for him to eat the whole triangle of smelly cheese and then hid him in his bag, placing another wheel of cheese and a few cheesy crackers for his little friend to snack during the day.

With that taken care of Adrien went downstairs to the dining room, where just like every morning a plate with his breakfast was delicately presented in front of him.

Fruits, a nice portion of scrambled eggs and a glass of just recently squeezed orange juice. To the side, a pack of vitamins and compliments he had to take, he still didn’t know why his friends didn’t take a salad of vitamins pill and they were just fine. Anyways, he was so used to it that he didn’t think about it anymore, now he just did it.

He ate his breakfast as fast as Nathalie allowed him to -that's _not an elegant nor healthy pace to eat, Adrien!_ \- The faster he finished his breakfast the earlier he could go to school and that meant he had more time to chat with his friends before the bell rang.

xx

He stepped out of the car, and as it was usual, he saw Nino waiting for him on the stairs and at his side Nathanaël, both of them waving at him with a smile on their faces. Adrien waved back and joined them quickly.

As odd as his group of friends was, he was the happiest guy in the world. How lucky he was for having these two as his friends.

 

“Nice hairstyle, Adrien!” Nath exclaimed poking the little ponytail on his hair “Trying to be as handsome as me?” This time, he brushed his own hair, showing his little bun.

“Couldn’t do it even if I tried” Adrien joked back and Nino laughed at his two friends.

Maybe three years ago this would be a strange situation for anyone at school, but as the years passed and Nathanaël joined the guys, he started to loosen up, showing the dashing personality he had been hiding, and thanks to that he slowly formed a bond with Nino and Adrien, they weren’t so different after all.

 

They walked into the classroom together and sat on top of Nino’s and Adrien’s desk to continue chatting and joking around. This was a routine Adrien would never get tired of.

“Have you talked to Alya?” Nathanaël asked Nino, his sight pointing to the open door.

Adrien gave a look to the point Nath’s eyes were focused, finding that Alya was outside, leaning on the bars of the stairs. He waved his hand to her, who had just caught his sight. She waved back with a smile and then stared at her phone once again. She was probably texting Marinette or avoiding him.

“No” Nino sighed “And I know what you are about to say, I know I have to talk to her if I want her back but I just can’t, not now”

“How many times have you heard him say that?” Adrien asked Nathanaël.

“I don’t know, is a daily thing by now” The redhead shrugged.

“Let me be. Is not that easy, okay?” Nino pinched the bridge of his nose “I’ll talk to her when I’m ready”

“When will that be? In the afterlight?” Adrien chuckled “Seriously, it’s been a month already, you guys need to get back together ASAP”

“Stop it” Nino brushed him off, real anger showing in his eyes “You haven’t dated anyone, you guys don’t understand… and you know how Alya can get”

“Do you want me to talk to Marinette?” Adrien asked.

“I spoke to her yesterday,” Nath said as he chewed a new piece of gum “She doesn’t have much to say,”

“Yeah, I doubt she will spill Alya’s secrets to us,” Adrien said after thinking it well “Do you have more gum?”

Nathanaël nodded, from his pocket he took a pack of gum and throw it at Adrien’s hands.

 

The bell rang exactly at the same time it did every day, making the three friends jump out of the desk and get into his respective seats.

The rest of the classmates that had been waiting outside entered.

When Alix passed by their desks, she high-fived the three guys as a greeting, just like she did every time she saw them.

After Alix entrance, Adrien could only wait for Kim to yell something at her before going to his own classroom.

And there he was, screaming about a new bet the both of them had, Alix rolling her eyes and back clapping to every single word he said.

Adrien laughed and so did his friends, he was happy that he hadn’t grown bored of them, in fact, Adrien found fascinating how they managed to fight over something new every day.

Adrien loved school so much.

Okay, it was boring sometimes, and homework wasn’t fun but, the whole experience, the routine, it was always so full of surprises and new events that Adrien couldn’t help but smile every chance he got.

And that wasn’t the only routine he loved, there was also another side of his life that he loved.

Fighting crime wasn’t exactly an everyday thing, but surely was a repetitive one and he enjoyed it so much. Every new experience he got on the job was something that made Adrien smile the rest of the day.

Also watching the girl you are in love being badass never goes out of style.

After that, it was more of the same, nothing abnormal so he couldn’t place his finger on what had gone wrong.

**xx**

 

The chances of Marinette waking up at the first beeping of the alarm do not deserve any mathematical formula, in a 99% of the cases it was a big and bold: _not going to happen._

 _Second beep?_ 20% of probabilities.

 _Third beep?_ 55%

 _Fourth beep?_ 75% of probabilities.

 _Fifth beep?_ 90%

 _Screaming Tikki telling her she was late?_ 100% rate of success.

 

Marinette jumped out of her bed at the speed of light as she was used to.

You’ll think that after a few years Marinette would have gotten better, but that wasn’t the case.

But, she had managed to create a strategy, to not be extremely late. Besides, leaving everything she needed in a specific place to make her wake up process faster, she also planned her outfit for school the night before.

Marinette loved fashion and she liked to look good.

On top of her divan, there was a long summer dress in lilac and aquamarine tones and a pair of white flat sandals. If she wasn’t such a klutz she would wear a pair of high-heeled sandals, but since she was and the changes of tripping in heels were a big 85% she chose the safer option.

Once she was ready she ran downstairs to catch the bag with food her mother probably had already left for her to pick up. The chances of Marinette late being not even a probability anymore but a fact and instead of keep fighting them, Sabine had learned to live with them, helping Marinette out by picking and packing her breakfast.

Marinette took the bag with her; today it was heavier than other days. 50% chances of it being filled with croissants, 50% chances of what was inside was an apple. But 100% chances for the bag to also have cookies.

Marinette had made very clear that she couldn’t live without chip chocolate cookies, and thought they weren’t for her, she wasn’t lying. She needed Tikki to be healthy and charged for her to be Ladybug and cookies made the job.

 

Marinette ran out of her house, crossed the street and made it to school on time.  Alya wasn’t waiting for her at the front which meant she was upstairs.

90% chances of Alya waiting for her outside Nino’s classroom, as she had been doing for the last week. The other 10% was that she was in the bathroom.

Marinette smiled when she saw Alya in the front of the door of the classroom. She ran to her, crossing an arm around her shoulders, surprising her in a hug.

“Good morning!” Marinette exclaimed.

“Finally! We are late” Alya caught Marinette by her wrist and pulled her to her side as they walked to their classroom.

“You didn’t speak to him did you?” Marinette sighed.

“He was busy” Alya shrugged. She was obviously lying.

“I’m 100% sure he would stop being busy if you asked him to talk,” Marinette said as they entered the classroom.

“I’m telling you he was busy!” Alya repeated between her teeth.

“Alya” Marinette rolled her eyes.

“Césaire, Dupain Cheng, if you are late, be quiet,” The teacher said without turning around to them, still writing on the blackboard.

They sat on their desks in silence and picked up their things as the class continued. Marinette picked up a notebook and ripped a page of it, writing a note to Alya.

**_C’mon, Alya it’s been a month, you can do this._ **

She placed the note closer to Alya so she could read it. Alya picked up her own pen as she frowned at the note.

**_C’mon Marinette, it’s been years, you can do this, tell him… See? We both can play this game._ **

Marinette was caught by surprise with the note, Alya must be in a really, really bad mood if she had written that to her. She picked up her pen once again and wrote down.

**_M: Sorry… still, I think you are waiting too long... or wait, are you waiting for something?_ **

**_A: For us to be dead_ **

**_M: Hahaha, you are so funny, Alya. I’m being serious, I spoke with Nath yesterday he says Nino wants to speak to you too._ **

**_A: Then why hasn’t him?_ **

**_M: I don’t know, why haven’t you?_ **

Alya didn’t give an answer and Marinette stopped pushing, she knew if she did there were 70% chances of them ending in a fight, and she didn’t want that, and for sure Alya didn’t need that either.

Marinette sighed.

She didn’t like how days had been after Alya’s breakup.

She liked the way life was before that. It was nice and happy and predictable. Unpredictable things were a big part of her other life and as familiar as those things were, they remained as abnormalities, abnormalities that she was getting tired to face day after day.

Not that she hated to be Ladybug but sometimes she wished she could have a calm week, where she could live her predictable and peaceful school life without any surprises.

But after the breakup, for the whole awkward month, Marinette crossed her fingers for an akuma to happen. The tension between Alya and Nino was so palpable that she had only seen Adrien from afar these days and thought they had texted, Adrien had been busy lately, as he usually was when the school year was ending.

Marinette gave a glance to Alya, she was still frowning.

She sighed.

The possibilities of this being a good pacific day had lowered from a 60% to a 30%. She was once again crossing her fingers for an akuma to happen, at least in that way Chat could make her laugh.

Those were Marinette’s hopes of what could happen that morning… she could recall quite vividly all that morning, but after that, everything was a blur.

**xxxx**

In a normal case, there was no change of Chat Noir not making a pun of what Marinette had just said. But he did not, and that is how she knew something odd what happening.

She turned around trying to find him, he was supposed to be there. He wasn’t.

Ladybug ran to the end of the rooftop, trying to catch a glimpse of him running to her or leaning against one of the walls or the pipes as he sometimes did, but he wasn’t there.

_Where was that cat?_

He had cast cataclysm and broke the antennas, then she had used her lucky charm. He ran to distract the akuma, Marinette had focused on assembling the weapon she had thought to defeat the akuma. She had used the weapon, she had called the cure, she had reverted all.

The fight was over. Why wasn’t he there?

They were supposed to bump their fists as they did every time, it was a ritual, no fight was finished if they didn’t celebrate it.

When she heard the screams she couldn’t stop the fear that ran through her veins.

Ladybug ran, guided by the screams and bustle of people who started to reunite in a circle.

There were so many people, camera flashes blinding her on her way there, but she didn’t need to see, she knew something was wrong, very, very wrong.

From above the city, Marinette focused her sight on the circle of people down in the street, when she saw _him._

Her brain didn’t get to process the information,  she was already screaming.

She jumped in the middle of the circle, trembling, tears starting to stream down her face as she sobbed.

She covered her mouth with her hands to repress another scream but she only muffled, the pain was too much to stop her physical responses to it.

There in the middle of the circle of people, on the gray hot ground, lied a guy dressed in black leather and cat ears. A blonde guy whose hair was now stained in red. Green eyes open with no life inside of them, no sign of blinking. An immobile body, no trembling because of pain, no signs of breathing.

Ladybug fell at his side, knees hitting the ground making a horrible noise, that should have hurt a lot and yet it was like a scratch compared to the pain that her heart was facing.

It felt like someone had taken her heart on their hands, strangling it with all the strength they had, as if they were cutting her open without any dose of anesthesia. Being hit and thrown out of roofs to the ground hurt like hell, she had scars and bruises to prove it, but the ache she was feeling right now? Nothing was as hurtful as this was.

Marinette felt like she was drowning in her own tears, she tried to clean them up so she could focus her sight on Chat but they kept coming, as a broken faucet that couldn’t be stopped.

She extended her hands and reached for a piece of his hair, long beautiful blonde hair that now was wet because of the blood. Her hand traveled to his neck, searching for his pulse, searching for hope. But, as she should have expected nothing was throbbing on his neck.

Marinette lost it.

She threw herself into his unconscious body and hugged him tightly, letting her tears fall on his chest. She could barely breathe thanks to the tears and the sobs, but Chat’s body was muffling her sounds.

Marinette wasn’t expecting this, not in a million years.

She expected what she was used to, the old plain routine she loved.

How stupid of her to think that winning was a granted thing for them. Marinette had never stopped to think how things could go for her and Chat Noir. She was used to defeating the evil, _so used_ to win that she completely forgot the risks they put themselves into. After all, there were a 50% chances for them to be the winners and a 50% chances for them to be the losers.

She was used to be part of the good percentage, she never stopped to think that there was another 50/50 change when it comes to their lives. 50% says you live today, 50% says you die. They only had two options but she had only ever thought of one.

How silly of her to let her mind to think like the one of a hero, always trying to find a way to change the percentages. Why hadn’t Marinette ever thought that there are possibilities that cannot be manipulated?

Why had she been so stupid?

Besides the questions in her mind, Ladybug hadn’t been paying attention to anything but Chat, so when she heard the beeping familiar noise, the other noises around her came back.

Everything was so loud.

Everyone was trying to watch what had happened and Marinette felt like she was about to puke. How morbid and disrespectful could people be? They weren't supposed to be here, this wasn’t a movie, they weren’t here to entertain them.

Marinette stopped hugging her partner and kneeled once again.

Taking a big breath she stood up, ready to take Chat in her arms and take him far away from here, where no one could turn his death into a joke.

She kneeled to catch his body when a green light blinded her.

“No!” Marinette gasped but it was too late, displayed in front of her was the guy behind the mask.

She covered her eyes without even thinking about it.

This wasn’t how it was supposed to go, this wasn’t how they had agreed to reveal their identities.

And thought Marinette didn’t want to look, in between the just founded silence a scream made her uncover her eyes and focus on the person who was yelling.

“Get the hell out of here!” Alya was screaming, phone in her hands as she brushed all the people out. Her eyes were full of tears and she was coming closer. “I already called an ambulance, Ladybug,” She said in between sobs.

Marinette could count with the fingers of her hand how many times she had seen Alya cry, she knew how much Ladybug and Chat Noir meant to her but this was another level of love, which made Marinette look down to the dead boy.

Marinette’s world stopped.

The broken pieces of her heart were now turning into dust. The world had just pulverized her.

This time, the scream that came out of her mound was almost inhuman. A scream so raw and full of pain that everyone around them felt her ache, a scream that had muffled the sound of her earring.

“Ladybug…,”Alya whispered to her, she was holding up her tears, trying to keep it together. Alya took Ladybug by her shoulders and made her look directly into her eyes “You are about to de-transform… I know how h-hard this is b-but you have to go”

It wasn’t fair, she shouldn’t have to go, she was supposed to stay by his side, holding him, keeping him safe, making him company till his family came for him. But she knew Alya was right.  She hated that Alya was right.

Marinette kneeled by his side, struck pieces of his hair out of his forehead and left a kiss on his still warm skin.

As she did that, without anyone noticing, she took the ring out of his finger, closing her hand around it. She kissed his forehead one more time, then his cheek, going closer to his ears.

“ _I love you…”_

Those words were not a confession.

She was in love with Adrien, you could ask anyone, but those three words weren’t said with that intention. She _genuinely_ loved him, as Adrien, _as Chat_ , as her friend. She loved him so much and now he was gone

“I will always love you, _minou,”_

Marinette caressed his cheek and closed his eyes, kissing his eyelids softly.

Then she turned to Alya.

“Please take good care of him” She begged.

She knew Alya would do anything to protect Adrien, but she needed to hear it.

“I promise” Alya nodded.

“I’ll be back as soon as I can, _chaton_ ”She waved at his corpse, she didn’t know why but she had to do it“ Bug out” And she was gone once again on the rooftops.

She didn’t go that far when her transformation worn out. She was on a little street with only a few people around just minding their business.  

She only let herself fall apart because she couldn’t contain it any longer.

As tired as Tikki was she tried to help out Marinette, but Marinette just brushed her off every time.

Marinette wanted life to be as it had been a month ago, happy and predictable, warm and familiar, she wanted her routine back. She wanted to be able to appreciate the little things she had missed, she wanted to go back and collect more memories, no matter how insignificant they were, she wanted happy little details to fill her head. She didn’t want this aching in her heart, she didn’t want this pain in her body, she didn’t want to remember this, but she knew she would, this was too big, this was too shocking, this wasn’t a tiny bit of information on her day, this was going to become part of her daily life… maybe that’s how the mind chooses the memories…

Marinette didn’t want these memories, Marinette didn’t want this pain to become a routine on her day, but what were the chances of her forgetting about this?

None, there was no way she could forget that Adrien Agreste, her Chat Noir had died.

**xxxx**

 

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> this was the one-shot I was going to post, but the more and more I wrote the more ideas came into my mind, and I decided this was a good idea for a fic so here it is :)  
> I really wanted to focus on how LB and CN risks their lifes every day but are so used to it that they forget that they can get hurt too, so that's what i did  
> hope you liked!


	2. LADY IN BLACK

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "the rain pours down your window  
> the ache pours down your soul   
> you wear black in every season  
>  the funeral never stops"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> angsty train continues...  
> 

Rainy days meant she could do a dancing session in her room, with Tikki flying around her. 

Rainy days meant new sketches, new winter designs, new clothes.

Rainy days meant transforming into Ladybug and challenge Chat Noir on a race on top of the rooftops.

Rainy days meant _ Adrien. _ She would always connect the rain with Adrien. 

She would always see his tender green eyes on her mind when it started raining, she could hear his laugh when the teardrops crashed on her roof. 

Her mind would replay the image of a fifteen-year-old ARain is water that condenses from the aqueous vapor in the atmosphere and falls to earth in the forms of drops.

Everyone knows that, you don’t need the definition of rain to know what rain is, and when it rains, people don’t think of what rain _ really is _ . People don’t think the definition of the word, or what phenomenon of nature causes rain, people  _ feel  _ the rain.

Rain can make many feelings bloom.

It is true, there are people who don’t feel anything when it rains, they just take the weather as it comes and they keep living their lives just as any other day. But there are two other groups of people.

The first one is a group of people who despise the rain.

Every time it rains their day turns as gray as the clouds crossing the sky, and their faces display frowns as they walk with their raincoats zipped to the top, with their umbrellas over their heads and their bags close to their bodies.

Then the second group is all the opposite, they are the people who love rainy days. People who don’t understand why rain is called “bad weather” because hey, rain it is beautiful! You can go under it and feel the teardrops crash into your hair, your face and it it’s, oh so wonderful. People who enjoy the teardrops rolling down their coats, their cheeks, and their boots; they love to play, dance and jump in puddles. People who stand in front of windows with a mug in hand and admire the drops falling from the sky. People who love the smell of rain on any superficies, grass, pavement, it doesn’t matter where, unless it smells like rain. People who love the sound rain makes against their roofs, creating a singular and familiar melody.

Marinette belonged to the second group.

Since she was little, the rain had a special room inside her heart. Rainy days were always good. Rainy days had a _ meaning. _

Rainy days meant her mom would prepare her a big mug of her special recipe of hot cocoa, with whipped cream on top and pieces of chocolate.

Rainy days meant she would play video games with her dad. 

Rainy days meant long marathons of movies with Alya on the floor of the living room, wrapped in blankets, eating the baked goods that couldn’t be sold at the bakery anymore.

drien Agreste offering his umbrella to her. She had the vivid picture of drops of water falling down his hair, running down his cheek and passing on top of his lips. The white shirt turning transparent, and adjusting to his body. His cheeks turning redder thanks to the cold, and how tense his body had been as he waited for her to take the umbrella.

_ Rain meant Adrien, Adrien meant rain.  _

And it was a horrible irony of the world to throw a thunderstorm on the day of his funeral.

_ What a bitter word. _

A word that always had had a meaning. A word that she could throw on sentences without thinking it twice, she could even throw it into jokes. A word that had a meaning but nothing more, a word that in only two days had changed. It wasn’t just a meaning anymore, now it had a feeling attached to it.

Pain, misery, ache, emptiness… those words were only a start.

Marinette had never felt like this before. 

She could feel her heartbreaking, she could feel the shatters cut down on her chest.She felt like she had open wounds and someone was pouring salt on them. She felt all her body hurt. She felt _ too  _ much.

She thought she couldn’t be able to feel anything; she thought the world would disappear now that he was gone, but it was the opposite. The world was bolder and louder, the world was reminding her that he was  _ gone _ .

It was raining… it was raining just like on the day of his funeral. It was raining again… it hadn’t stopped raining in days.

It was raining…. Just like Marinette’s eyes were.

She didn’t know how her body still had the energy to keep creating tears. She cried all day and all night, she had little breaks on the day, while she ate or slept, but the rest of the day her eyes were a broken sink.

“Marinette…” Tikki whispered in her ear.

Marinette turned her head to watch the little kwami. She didn’t say a word to her, she didn't have to ask what she wanted, she already knew.

She sighed, she cleaned the tears dropping from her eyes and walked away from the window where she had been admiring the rain.

She started walking, but she walked slowly, her body is too heavy to carry. Her sorrow is an annoying and uncomfortable host, the weight is too much for her tiny body to handle, and with such little energy it’s hard to move, so when she does, she is slow.

Her steps made a harsh sound against the wooden floor, but it is a nice sound for her to hear. It is different from the sound her feet make when she drags them against the wood, it is a better sound because it handles more energy with it, something that Marinette misses.

She made it to her vanity, where the mirror reflected a girl who shouldn’t be up, a girl who wishes she could avoid reality until the end of her life. The reflection of a broken-hearted soul who wishes could stay in bed forever, who wishes she could go back in time to never feel like this again. It also showed a girl with a rational side and said rational said knows is time to face real life.

Marinette took the hairbrush and started brushing her deep dark hair in slow strokes, twisting the ends with her fingers and taking longer than necessary on her basic routine.

When she stopped brushing she looked at the reflection in the mirror, finding a smile from her kwami.

Tikki had been trying to cheer her up every day, but nothing worked so now she only smiled, hoping that it would at least help Marinette to calm down.

Marinette smiled back, she only held the little fake smile for a second, but that was  enough to make Tikki smile brighter. It didn’t last long, and it wasn’t a good smile, but it was the first time Marinette tried, and that counts more than any other thing that she could have done. 

Marinette runned her fingers through her hair one last time. She wondered if she should tie her hair up, wondering if she should have put on makeup.

She decided to leave her hair down, but took a hair tie and put it on her wrist, just in case she needs it later.

One more look at the mirror and she concluded that she  _ does need _ makeup.

She doesn’t have much energy to put on makeup –something she really liked to do- but she knew it was necessary. The bags under her eyes  _ needed  _ to be covered, it is not because she is vain, is because she didn't want to worry anyone more than they already were. She also decided to apply a little bit of lipgloss on her lips, the red lipgloss Chat Noir bought for her a year ago. “ _ It reminded me of you” _ the memory of his word, the chime of his voice rang on her ears. 

Marinette touched her lips, ran her index finger across them, touched the sticky texture on her lips. It was a ridiculous thing to do, but she couldn’t help herself; it is something related to him.

She needs him today, more than ever, but she can’t have him, so the best next thing is an object that is bonded to him.

Like the black hoodie that waited for her on her diván.

She didn’t remember how she ended up with the hoodie, only that she had acquired the piece of clothing the day before his death.

She had teased him about him never getting the hoodie back; that she was going to keep it forever.  _ Oh _ , the irony.

Marinette sighed again.

She can’t count how many times she has let out a sigh in the last five minutes, it feels like it is the only thing she does besides crying.

“Marinette…” Tikki said her name softer than she has ever said it before. Her voice is as sweet as sugar and as soft as silk. “It is time to go… I know how hard it is to go on with your life, but you have to. I’m sorry if I’m being harsh, but I can’t lie to you… I can’t tell you everything will be fine because is not going to be, but it is time.” Tikki sighed “Alya promised to pick you up and it will be Nino’s first day back too, you’ll have them and you’ll have me, I won’t leave your side and I will listen to you if you need to talk”

Marinette looked direct at her kwami’s eyes; she could see the worry on them and the love for her. So instead of ignoring her or answering just with a nod of her head, she decided is time to speak to Tikki, she deserved it.

“Thank you, Tikki”

And those were the first words Marinette has said in a week.

She hadn’t spoke with anyone since that day. Not a single word had come out of her lips. Not when Alya told her the bad news, not when her parents hugged her as she cried, not when Alya tried to drag her to the funeral, not during lunches, not during Alya’s visits; not a single word had escaped Marinette’s lips until that moment. 

Tikki kissed her cheek, Marinette felt grateful that she didn’t keep talking. She knew it was time, and that it doesn’t matter if she is not ready. If it depended of her being ready to face reality, then the time to do it would never come.

She walked to her divan and took Adrien’s hoodie in her hands. She pulled it closer to her nose and sniffed the scent on the neck of it. 

It smelled like Adrien’s perfume, fresh and sweet at the same time. 

She hugged the hoodie close to her body before putting it on. A piece of Adrien was here today, even if he was not.

With the hoodie on, she felt ready to go.

Marinette went for her bag, lying on top of the desk. When she moved it, the swift action dropped a jar with pens that hit the box on the side.

Marinette’s heart stopped when she saw the box bounce out of the desk. She jumped to catch it before she had time to analyze the situation.

She dropped to the floor, hitting her stomach and chest against the floor, the hit was harsh and it hurted, but Marinette did not care, the box was on her hands and that’s all that matters.

“Marinette are you okay?!” Tikki asked worriedly.

“Yes,” Marinette answered, not paying much attention to her.

Her eyes were fixed on the hexagonal box.

“Tikki…I didn’t see his kwami that day…” Marinette’s words came out of their mouth slowly shaking.

“Plagg hid as fast as he could, you couldn’t have seen him, Marinette” Tikki answered. Her voice was gentle and sweet, but not in the normal tone Marinette was already familiar with, there was something softer on her words.

“ _ Plagg _ … he must miss him, huh?” Marinette opened the box with caution. She expected for a bubble of light to appear in front of her eyes, just like the time she had opened the box for the first time. But nothing happens, she only sees a black ring with a green paw on it.

“Yes, but he won’t tell you that,” Tikki said “He won’t appear in front of you, you are not his chosen”

Marinette took the ring between her thumb and her index finger, rolling it in between them.

It is heavier than she thought it would be and softer than it looked. The black material of what it was made reflected the light almost as a diamond would, and just as a diamond it felt indestructible.

Marinette stopped playing with the ring.

She looked at her left hand and then at the ring again. Her sight drifts from one to other multiple times until she decides to go along with the thought that has appeared on her mind.

Carefully she put on the ring, watching the piece of jewelry turn from black to silver and back to black, and then she saw the iridescent bright lime green light.

From the ring jumped a black kwami, it was a little bigger than Tikki was, and instead of antennas he had cat ears, his eyes are not blue but deep green.  _ Just like Chat’s _ , she thinks,  _ maybe that’s why his eyes changed. _

“Hi, Plagg” Marinette welcomed him. “I’m Marinette, I--

“I know who you are,” Plagg said in a plain tone. “The princess has finally decided to let me out of my prison”

“Plagg!” Tikki shouted at him.

“I’m sorry” Marinette apologized. She wanted to apologize for so much more than she could express at that moment. She wanted to apologize but it was not the time, so she ignored the nauseous waves on her stomach that her guilt was spreading. She ignored it and she spoke again. “I’ll make it up to you… what do you eat?”

“Cheese.  _ Camembert  _ ” He answered.

“I don’t think we have camembert,” Marinette said “But we may have a few cheese Danishes, would that be okay?”

Plagg had his little hands tangled in front of him. His eyes were studying Marinette from head to toe before he answered to her. Marinette saw how something sparked on his cat eyes.

“Yeah, that will do” He nodded  “Are you going to school, princess?”

“Yes,” She said back, ignoring how Plagg was calling her princess.  _ Chat used to call me princess.  _

“I would like to go,” Plagg said to her. It did not sound like a request, it had been more as he was ordering her to take him.

“You’ll have to share space with Tikki,” Marinette told him at the same time she opens her back to show him where he is going to be hiding. “Can I take the ring off? You are not going to disappear, right?” Marinette knew that if she didn’t want Tikki to go back to the earrings, she wouldn’t go back, but she didn’t know anything about Chat’s miraculous. It could work differently.

Plagg nodded and jumped inside of the bag.

Tikki kept quiet. Marinette could see something was bothering her but she reamained silent. There were enough things to worry about and she was not going to add another one to the list, no matter how selfish that made her.

**xx**

Alya was quiet, and Marinette was grateful for it.

Quiet is not a word you used to describe Alya, so the fact that she is in complete silence now it was something Marinette wasn’t going to forget, mostly because she was doing it for her.

Alya had visited Marinette across the week, trying to speak to her so she could talk back, trying to convince her to go to Adrien’s funeral, but it hadn’t work. She had given up on it two days ago. Marinette thought maybe once they were back in school she would try again, but that wasn’t the case.

Nino was quiet too, but it was a different kind of quite. 

Alya’s silence was comforting and just the right amount of awkward.

Nino’s silence is the loudest shout of pain anyone could ever hear.It was the same brand of quiet Marinette displayed.

It was the kind of quiet everyone could notice and yet everyone ignored. 

That’s what her schoolmates had been doing. 

Marinette was not mad about people avoiding them; she wouldn’t know what to do either. 

Nino, Alya, and Marinette were standing in front of the girls’ classroom, leaning against the wall, waiting for the class to start. Marinette and Nino were looking at the closest window, not paying attention to anything else. Still, Marinette could feel Alya’s sight on them.

Marinette was trying to hold her tears as she looked through the square window.

Raindrops crashed against the glass. 

Thunder echoed down the hall.

Lighting cut across the sky, making shadows on the wall.

And Marinette’s heart broke a little bit more. 

_ Did it really have to rain today? Again? _

Marinette wanted it to be a sunny day, with nice temperatures; she wanted a blue sky, only a few clouds on it. Marinette didn’t want rain; Marinette didn’t want her happy memories to keep being destroyed.

“Thank god is raining,” Nino whispered, breaking the silence that not even Alya had been brave enough to break.

Marinette was not able to cope with that.  _ Thank god is raining? What the hell is Nino saying? IT SHOULDN’T BE RAINING! _

“I know” Alya agreed. “It helps”

“How?” Marinette asked under her breath, surprising her best friend.

“It is like nature is mourning him too” Nino answered “If it was sunny I… I feel like… He was…I don’t know how to put it into words, M”

Marinette nodded. 

She bit her lip as hard as she could, trying to trick her brain, trying to concentrate on that pain and not the one in her heart.

“I don’t think I can do this” Marinette whispered to Alya. When she says it she did not look at her, she looked at the ring on her finger. 

“We have to” But is not Alya who answered, it was Nino. “Adrien wouldn’t like for us to stop living”

Marinette opened her mouth to speak, but she stayed there, static.

“It’s true, Mari” Alya softly took her from her shoulders. “Adrien wouldn’t like to see you like this, Adrien wouldn’t like to see any of us sad… we have to try, for Adrien”

The bell rang, they saw Nino’s teacher enter the room, which meant that their teacher was next.

“For Adrien” Marinette repeated. 

Nino and Alya nodded at her and gave her little smiles.

They started walking to the classrooms.

Alya stopped at their door only to say goodbye to Nino, giving him a kiss on his cheek. Nino smiled at it.

Marinette knew they were far from fixing their problems, but it was nice to see them together. 

_ Adrien would have liked to see this. _

She looked at the ground, trying to keep her composure.

“Mari” She felt Alya’s hand trying to take her “I’ll be there, I promise… You can do this, if not for yourself, for Adrien, remember?”

“For Adrien,” She said one more time. And really low, so Alya can’t hear her she whispered “ _ For Chat _ ”

**xx**

Death _ sucks. _

Adrien never thought death would be something entertaining or nice, but death  _ really, really sucked _ . 

Mostly because it was boring, there was nothing to do but stare at a death point. Ha! A pun… yeah, he had made a dozen of those in the last ten minutes.

Adrien couldn’t believe this was the afterlife. It was like that time when an akuma had trapped him in another dimension with nothing around him. 

Okay, wrong, he had been with Chloé, and in all honesty, he missed her.If Chloé were here then he could talk to someone. 

His life –or well, his death – had reduced to black backgrounds and silence. It was boring, frustrating and irritating. He was going insane, and he couldn’t do anything about it. There was no escape; there was nothing he could do to fix the situation.

Was the rest of his life –well, _ death _ \- going to be like this?

The answer was no, but Adrien didn’t know that yet. 

 

Dead people didn’t sleep, but Adrien liked to pretend. He closed his eyes and tried to keep them closed for as long as he could, and pretended to have dreams and then faked a wake up. 

Today, as he was in the middle of the game, something changed, making him pop his eyes open immediately. Which wasn’t a good choice, cause the light struck him and left him blind for a few seconds.

Instead of complaining, Adrien stood up from the ground and started jumping.

Light!  _ There was light! _

And what was that?  _ There were sounds! _

Steps on stairs, whispers of voices, the sound of rain falling on top of rooftops, birds singing.  So many different noises!

Adrien rubbed his eyes, trying to adapt to the light he opened his eyes slowly this time.

The first thing he noticed was the spot of painting on the roof. And that was enough to know where he was.

Adrien stood up from the floor, realizing he was in the middle of a classroom. He didn’t expect for anyone to see him, he was dead, he was a ghost, no one should be able to see him.

Well and no one would have anyways, because the room was empty.

Adrien looked at the clock on the wall and the bare classroom made sense: recess time.

Adrien wasted no time –not that he had any to lose –and ran outside. He needed to find his friends. He needed to see how they were dealing.

He had been wondering for days how they were doing. He didn’t want them to mourn him, but he knew that was an impossible wish to have, knowing his friends they weren’t doing okay.

He knew that Nino was not doing well. 

When Nino was worried he wasn’t able to sleep, he got easily irritated and he put on his headphones and disconnected from the world. He didn’t want to see Nino in bad shape, it was enough to see him suffer over the breakup with Alya and now, Adrien had died. He couldn’t believe he was putting more pain in his friends’ life. And talking about Alya, she was probably sad too! And Nathanaël! And Mari! 

God, why did he have to die? Why couldn’t he stay alive? Then he wouldn’t hurt the people he cared the most.

Adrien ran across the second floor, he went to the library and searched all around it. He ran downstairs and he ran across the field trying to find his friends. But they were nowhere to be found.

Adrien stood in the middle of the field, looking to every direction, trying to think where they could be when the sight of a red head passed across his eyes.

In the second floor, Nathanaël was walking towards Marinette and Alya’s classroom.

“Of course!” Adrien said and changed directions, running upstairs this time. “This would be easier if being a ghost was as cool as it is portrayed in movies,”

The good thing was that he didn’t get tired of all the running, at least that was a plus of being dead.

He entered the classroom, and finally, he saw his friends.

Nathanaël was sitting next to Nino, none of them was smiling, and that was an odd look for them. 

Nathanaël looked like his old self, like when he sat in the last row of the class and slept through every lesson. 

Nino looked like he hadn’t slept in decades –something that did not surprise Adrien, he knew he was going to look like this –his eyes were stained in red and his under eyes circles were prominent, a rare thing thanks to the color of his skin. He was also skinnier and that was in no way a good look for him.

“Nino” Alya’s voice interrupted Adrien’s thoughts.

Alya 

looked like she always did, to someone who didn’t know her. Adrien does, he can’t put his finger on it, but there’s something missing in her, that little spark that makes Alya shine as bright as a constellation, that something that makes Alya as loud as a festival, that little something, is gone. And he knows is his fault.

“Yeah?” Nino asked back to Alya.

Adrien was glad that they were talking, but he realized that things between them were not quite right, not yet.

“Do you want something to eat? I’m buying Marinette a cereal bar…”

“No, nothing, I’m fine”

“Sure?” Alya crooked an eyebrow at him.

“Sure” Nino nodded.

“Okay,” Alya said. Then she turned back to Nathanaël, but she did not ask him if wanted something. She only looked at him and then points out at Nino and at the back of the room.

Adrien sight followed Alya’s hand, stumbling into the body she was pointing at.

Because that’s what he was looking at. Just a body, because the girl who that body belonged to could not be the girl he thought he was.

He could have focused on many of Marinette’s details.

Just like Nino, she was slimmer, she had undeniable dark circles under her eyes, her skin was paler than ever. 

There were so many things to point out that showed Marinette’s pain, but Adrien couldn’t look at anything but her eyes.

Cerulean eyes that used to shine in excitement, eyes that were always sparkling with vitality and joy; a pair of eyes that Adrien always thought were beautiful, a pair of sapphires that inspired him calm. Those eyes that Adrien liked so much were now empty.

It was like looking at a broken doll. 

Marinette’s porcelain skin and red lips were still there, but all the little details and beautiful things that made her the extraordinary person she was, had vanished.

Marinette was as dead as Adrien was.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> okay, here it is :)  
> i'm trying to write something different to what i always write, focusing more on feelings, keyword trying, so any constructive criticism is welcomed as well as suggestions :D  
> Hope you liked it!  
> thank you so much for reading  
> xx  
> find me on tumblr: buginettte.tumblr.com


	3. DIFFERENT NAMES FOR THE SAME THING

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> "what's the point in synonyms?  
> at the end  
> despair and misery feel the same  
> no matter how you describe them"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> upd: I edited something it was tiny so no worries :)

It is said that grief has five stages.

It is said that these five stages are universal, that any person who has lost someone has come through these same five stages.

But can a feeling as complex be categorized?

It comprises a million of different emotions that are continually crashing, overlapping and mixing together.

How can every single person who has faced the decease of a loved one feel the same way when people are so different? Relationships are not always similar, they depend on the ones involved. How is it possible that they all go through the same states?

Maybe the feelings are so complex and impossible to understand that we just accepted the categories that were given to us, to help us ease the pain. Maybe that’s why these stages exist.

There are five of them, five stages of grief.

Grief…. Such a complex feeling, a sensation of lost and empty roads that you can’t escape of.  

Grief involves an emotion so consuming and devastating that lets you stand on your feet only for a few seconds before you felt tired again and fall to the cold hard ground.

The feeling has been categorized; someone dared to categorize it and Adrien couldn’t believe it.

He had not believed it when years ago, a psychologist had explained him every single one of these stages. His therapist had tried to make him understand that what he was feeling, was normal.

He did not believe it when his mother died, and he did not believe it now.

You couldn’t put emotions in boxes and give them a label with a specific description.

Emotions were too big and abstract to fit in a square shaped box.ç

It had been hard to understand why he was feeling sad, and why his heart was leaking pain through its cracks, but the existence of those stages did not change anything. Now matter how many times they tried to explain him, it was useless because all he could see was the red anger and the grey solitude of mourning.

Now, he understood better why people said these states existe. When you watched mourning from afar, grief _did_ seem to have five stages.

 

As Adrien watched the people he loved, he realized they went through them, at a different pace but all of them could fit in one. Some more than the others, but they were inside of every single one of his friends.

 

The first stage, the stage of denial and isolation, was his father’s kingdom, reigned by silence and liquid poison.

The memory of his father had returned to him only moments after seeing Marinette. If she looked like a broken porcelain doll with sad eyes, a cracked smile, and completely lifeless; he didn’t want to know how his father was dealing with his death.

His imagination was being unpleasant, playing scenarios inside of his mind as a 24/7 circus ready to entertain whoever paid attention to it. So he chose to go and see things as they were, only to have a real image of what his father was going through and not an imaginary world where things could be so much worse.

He remembered how his father had reacted after his mother’s death, it had been bad but had tried to keep it together for him, for his son.

He put on a façade and stepped away from his personal life, he drowned in work. He grew to be a cold version of the man Adrien loved, a man who was distant but had put his song first even when he wasn’t aware of it.

Adrien left school running, at the fastest pace he had ever run when he was alive, in the direction of his father’s headquarters.

He was sure, his father was going to be inside of his office, a thousand papers on top of his desk, fabrics on the floor and samples on the wall. Mannequins around him with needles and strap, ready to make another design, probably the fourth on that day. It had been like that three years ago.

But his father wasn’t there.

Adrien couldn’t understand how his father wasn’t home. He barely let Adrien leave the house when his mother passed away and Gabriel worked the whole time, always inside of his studio, not visiting any place of the house that could spark a memory, he did not use his bedroom for the first two months after her death.

So where could he be? This didn’t make any sense.

However, no matter how many theories Adrien tried to come up with for his father not to be at work, the simplest and the one he kept refusing had been the reality of Gabriel’s situation.

When he stepped into the house, nothing looked different, things were at their place, the light entered through the windows at the right angle, the floors were clean and the smell of fresh lavender swirled around the front door as it always did, and yet Adrien knew something was wrong the moment he walked through the hallway.

The house was always quiet, but it had never been a silent place. You could hear the steps of the staff who worked cleaning the house, the doors of the kitchen’s shelves opening and closing, their personal chef chopping vegetables on the counter, Nathalie’s tic-tac produced by her kitty heels and the sound of her phone as it vibrated against the fabric of her blazer.

Right now, no sound echoed through the big walls and the long corridors.

He wasn’t at his office, so Adrien went to the second place he could think about, a place that went against anything that seemed logical for Adrien. He went to his room.  

Adrien stood in the front of his door, wondering what to do next for about ten minutes but for him, they seemed to be just seconds. He couldn’t perceive it yet, but the world seemed to move faster around him.

Finally, after thinking about it, he decided to go to inside the room.

This time he was right. Adrien wished he hadn’t been.

Gabriel Agreste, famous and renamed designer, the man who kept a cold façade and stood like he was a god on Earth in front of the simple mortals who acclaimed him. The man who loved his son over all things, even if it was hard for him to demonstrate, that man, was lying in the middle of a dark room.

The curtains were closed and so were the windows, and that was the reason why the whole place reeked of strong expensive liquor.

There were bottles of the finest alcohol beverages around the room, some of them were empty, others only half finished or dripping from the bottles to the carpets.

Bottles weren’t the only things on the ground, there were also sketchbooks and pencils around, broken glass from what Adrien believed to be the expensive TV that was right now nowhere to be found, and from frames of photographs and posters he had around.

The room was a mess just like the man who had caused the disaster on it.

Nathalie was nowhere to be found, but the plates of unfinished food around the coffee table and the fact that the entire mansion wasn’t a wreck were enough proof, she was still around, managing the house and keeping his father’s life together… but that was impossible.

The scene he had in front of his eyes could have been mistaken for a photography more than a motion picture because the only movement in the room was the ups and down of Gabriel’s chest in an arrhythmic breathing tempo, this was also the only proof of his vital state.

Watching the scene in front of his eyes was painful, it made him cringe and even if he couldn’t feel his body as he used to when he was alive, it was like sharp objects were cutting through his skin, shivers crawled on his skin and he found himself pulling his hair.

His father’s misery made him want to die once again.

Instead of running away and escape from the unsettling and devastating feeling that was taking power over him, he stayed in the room. Besides, he had nowhere left to go, he wasn’t supposed to be still on earth, right?

He should be somewhere else, in one of the many other places religions spoke about, or to the beginning of a new circle, or just somewhere else that wasn’t here where he could not only feel but _see_ the pain of his death.

He sat on one of the corners of the room, away from his father but still with his sight on him, looking over him. He wouldn’t be able to do anything to help him if something happened to Gabriel, but he felt better by looking at him. It wasn’t a nice view, but maybe, just maybe his father could feel his presence and that would help him to move on.

**xx**

Adrien only realized that a week passed by because of Nathalie.

Her constant visits to his father, taking away the untouched food and placing new plates of hot and healthy food on the coffee table. She ordered the staff to clean up the mess of the room and every time, just before leaving, she tried to talk to him, only to be rejected with awful screams from his barely conscious father.

Those were the only things that helped Adrien to keep a track of time, because if it had been for his perception and the -non-existent- activity of his father, he could have sworn it had only been three days.

There she was again, picking up from the floor the flowers she had brought yesterday.

Adrien was waiting for her to say something so his eye followed her across the room. He was still sitting in the same place where he sat one week ago. His body –or whatever he could call his form at this point- wasn’t tired and he didn’t feel uncomfortable after days of keeping still.

He was another object in the room, the only object Gabriel hadn’t tried to destroy in the pass of the week.

“Gabriel” Nathalie called.

Adrien never, ever, ever had heard Nathalie call his father by his name, but apparently Nathalie had lost her patience two days ago because she didn’t try to be nice anymore when she approached him, she didn’t start with a  nice tone of voice or sweet words –well, as sweet as Nathalie could be- not anymore. She was direct and the frown on her forehead didn’t leave her face.

Gabriel didn’t answer.

He was sitting on a chair at the head of the table, in his hand, a half-filled crystal glass of white wine was getting warm.

Gabriel Agreste didn’t like white wine, but Adrien had noticed that it had been the last bottle of alcohol in the house.

He was hoping that once that bottle was empty, Gabriel would stop with the drinking and focus once again on his job. He didn’t have to go back to the office, he could do it all from here, but Adrien just wanted him to stop drinking.

Alcohol brought up the worst of Gabriel, Adrien wished he could erase the images he had seen this week, but they were imprinted in his mind and there was nothing left to do. He had memories of his father screaming, breaking things, pushing and kicking furniture. He had images of his father crying and screaming, asking for Adrien to come back home.

“Gabriel” Nathalie repeated this time she managed to call his attention.

“Is he back, Nathalie?” Gabriel spoke for the first time in days. His voice was croaky and the words smashed into one and other.

“He won’t be back, Gabriel” Nathalie answered. Her voice didn’t have any signs of sadness on it, in fact, it didn’t have any emotion attached. But everything that hadn’t been expressed in those words was being portrayed in her eyes. Nathalie was about to cry.

“He will… I could—

“Adrien is gone” Nathalie interrupted sharply “I’m extremely sorry, and just as you I wish he was here with us, but that won’t happen, Gabriel”

“He’ll be back” Gabriel assured.

Trembling and using the table as support, Mr. Agreste stood up from the chair. It took him a few seconds to concentrate all his strength on his leg and start moving, walking in Nathalie’s direction.

“He will be back!” Gabriel shouted in Nathalie’s face.

Adrien couldn’t take it anymore.

Staying here watching his father suffer… it was pure masochism. Watching him scream to Nathalie with so much rage, fearing that he would hurt her wasn’t what he wanted to remember from his father.

He had to leave.

**xx**

Adrien wandered around the city, watching people walk by without seeing him.

He had to admit it was nice to walk through crowded Paris without being recognized… if only the situation had been a little different, maybe he would have really enjoyed it.

With nowhere left to go, he headed back to school.

He hadn’t been there for a week and he wanted to see how his friends were dealing.

After seeing them a week ago, he wasn’t expecting to find them singing and dancing around in a field of flowers, but he did wish for them to be better. One thing Adrien had realized after years of friendship was that he was loved, and it was only logical that those people who loved him to keep mourning him.

He expected them to be down, not depressed or on the border of tears, not like… not like Marinette a week ago.

He expected multiple scenarios, but deep in his heart, he wished for them to be trying.

That’s not what he found.

Right, when he entered his old classroom he stumbled with the second stage of grief: anger.

The person who was on that stage was the last person Adrien imagined could be stuck inside of it.

He could see Nino and Nathanaël looking at Marinette and Alya.

Nino’s arms were crossed in front of his chest, he was frowning and there was no sign of his loyal red cap, which made things look way worse for Adrien.

Nathanaël, at his side, looked uncomfortable.

“Can you just not disappear like that?” Alya begged with a smooth voice. She took one piece of Marinette’s hair and left it behind her ear.  

“I’m sorry…” Marinette answered, her words trembling “I had something to do…”

“You always have something to do, Marinette” Nino spat out. “Just admit that you are running away”

“I’m not” Marinette gave a little jump, taking a step further to Nino.

“You are! We are all trying here except you!” Nino took a step forward too, making Marinette tense up.

“Don’t talk to her like that, Nino” The way Alya said that, was so different from how Alya really was. Her voice was soft and fragile like she was afraid of hurting something. “We are all friends here, we just need to talk—

“TALK?!” Nino laughed ironically “Yeah, that’s your strength right, Alya? _Talk_ ”

“Nino…” Nathanaël said under his breath. He placed one hand in front of his chest and pushed him back to his place.

“Do not!” Nino shook him off “The only reason she is talking to me is that of this fucked up situation we are living! She wouldn’t even look at me two weeks ago and now she pretends nothing happened!”

“She is not pretending, Nino” Marinette stepped up for her best friend “It’s not the moment, things are hard… Adrien died and…

“YES! ADRIEN DIED!” Nino’s fury couldn’t be ignored. His face, oh, Adrien had never seen Nino’s eyes injected with such heavy poison, he hadn’t seen his body so tense, ready to hit the first thing that crashed on his way.

Adrien, unconsciously, walked closer, trying to put himself in the middle of his best friend and Marinette.

“And you, Marinette!” Nino pointed a finger at the girl “You act like you are the only one who lost him! Oh, look at me I’m so sad my crush died!” He shouted at her face.

“Nino!” Nathanaël did what Adrien couldn’t. He placed himself in front of Marinette, giving her his back “Enough, this isn’t you!”

But Nino didn’t listen. The pain was so consuming that he couldn’t feel anything but it, he could only think of his own feelings because he couldn’t share them with anyone. He couldn’t talk to his family, his parents treated him like a lost cause and the times his sister had tried to talk to him she looked nervous, making Nino not want to talk to her.

He couldn’t talk to Alya, things were still awkward because of their last fight, the reason of the breakup, still hanged in between them. He had tried to talk to Nathanaël but it didn’t feel right. And finally, when he had found a person whom Nino believed loved Adrien as much as him, she wasn’t there for him.

Marinette was a body without a soul, she went to class but it would have been the same if she had stayed home. Just like him, Marinette only could focus on her own pain.

“I was his best friend! We actually shared something!” Nino shouted, “You act like you are a widow, but you never even told him how you felt!”

“I…”

“You say you love him. You act like you lost the love of your life” Nino took a deep breath “YOU DIDN’T EVEN GO TO HIS FUNERAL, MARINETTE! YOU DIDN’T SAY GOODBYE TO HIM AND THEN YOU—

“Sit down, Lahiffe!” A new voice interrupted the fight. It was strong and determinate, and it had been the only voice able to shut Nino.

Adrien stopped looking at Nino for the first time during the whole fight, just to look at the girl who had entered the classroom.

Chloé was in the middle of the corridor, looking at the four friends. She stood there, head high, perfect hair and makeup on point as always. Her hair was on a cascade braid that made her look older than she was, she seemed so mature in contrast to the fighting group of friends.

“Your angry, we are all angry,” Chloé said between her teeth “But you don’t get to scream to Marinette like that. She is dealing with this in her way, let her do it”

“Running away is dealing with it?” Nino crooked a brow. If he hadn’t been hurting so much, he would have looked entertained by Chloé’s behavior.

“We all mourn differently. Have you seen me cry?” She asked but didn’t let him answer “No, you haven’t but I bet you don’t have the guts to tell me that I’m not hurting, that I don’t miss my _oldest_ friend”

“Chloé” Marinette arranged to say.

“Not now, Dupain-Cheng” Chloé lifted a warning finger at her. “Put yourself together, Nino. This horrible person you are portraying right now, it isn’t you, it’s the pain speaking… Adrien wouldn’t like to see you like this”

Nino pressed his lips together and his hands turned to fists. His eyes began to glitz with upcoming tears.  

“Let’s go, Nino” Nathanael passed one arm over his friend’s shoulder, bringing him closer to him. Then he guided him outside the classroom.

The three girls were left behind.

Marinette, just like Nino, was on the border of tears.

Chloé’s face was impossible to figure it out, Adrien had never seen her face so… emotionless. At her side, Alya was all the opposite, her face was displaying and changing to every possible emotion.

“Thanks, Chloé” Marinette whispered.

“You owe me big” Chloe huffed “Next time do it yourself, I won’t be around all the time. Maybe eat a little something a put energy on your system so you can shout back”

Marinette gave a tiny amused smile that Chloé wasn’t able to see because she was walking out of the room.

Adrien gave a big grin, looking at the blonde disappear.

He was proud of her, he had been for a while. She had grown to be a better person these three years; she was still Chloé but the best version she could be. She had shown that now, especially those words to Marinette, it was her way to say that she cared.

Adrien followed Marinette and Alya closely.

The reason was Marinette and how skinny and sad she looked, but he kept his eyes on Alya, too frightened to come to false conclusions about Marinette’s state.

The girls were in complete silence walking down the hallways, unusual behavior for those two who were always chit-chatting and laughing around each other.

Adrien knew this was his fault, he wasn’t being egocentric but sadly that was the truth.

“I’m sorry I couldn’t defend you” Alya whispered, breaking the silence between them.

“Oh, ‘Lya” Marinette stopped and turned to her best friend, wrapping her arms around her “It’s fine”

“It’s not!” Alya said in a drowned shout “Chloé had to step in and help you out. Of all people, Chloé defended you and I couldn’t do it. I should have done something, anything”

“You tried and—

“That’s not enough, Marinette” Alya gasped “It’s not enough…”

Adrien shook his head in disappointment.

He couldn’t escape them, could he? Right in front of him, Alya was the living definition of the third stage of grief _, bargain._

He had _never_ expected to find Nino in the stage of anger, but it wasn’t surprising that Alya was going through the third stage, it went well with her personality.

Alya was the kind of person who liked to have things under control, the one who thought everything could be planned and analyzed.

She was organized and a natural leader, she was charismatic and smart, which made things usually go in the ways she wanted them to go, and when they weren’t she always knew how to turn the situation around to benefit her somehow.

Alya was freaking out, the conflicted look in her eyes didn’t go away, no matter how many emotions crossed her face; her eyes didn’t change.

Adrien imagined, that inside of her mind she was asking herself a million questions and running a thousand theories, trying to solve the mysteries of death.

Furthermore, if Chloé became the voice of reason, it was only natural for your world to turn upside down.

Adrien was brought back to the conversation when he heard his name again.

“We lost Adrien, we can’t lose you, Mari… I can’t lose you, I will not be able to go through that”

“Y-you won’t lose me, Alya,” Marinette promised.

“Promise me”

“I promise, I’m not leaving you. I don’t want to”

“Why does it feel like you are lying?”

“I’m not” It wasn’t a defensive comeback

“You are…you..and, _ugh.”_ Alya rubbed her temples “Just look at you, you are a mess… your feelings for Adrien are destroying you, piece by piece you are falling apart. You are like a tree in mid-autumn, and one day winter will come and all your leaves are going to fall and this empty person it’s gonna stand in front of me. No happiness, no love, no Marinette. I’m afraid, I fear for you… so please, please say it again; promise me, this time for real, that you won’t leave me”

“I won’t leave you, Alya Césaire, not ever” Marinette took Alya’s face between her hands, making the redhead look straight to her eyes as she made the promise.

Alya nodded and gave a loud sob before throwing herself into Marinette’s arms.

Adrien couldn’t ignore Marinette anymore, it wasn’t doing any good and after Alya’s words, he was just as afraid as she was.

Marinette didn’t look like herself, she hadn’t looked like herself a week ago when he first saw her after his death, and she didn’t look any better today, on the contrary, she looked worst.

Marinette had always been skinny, but she was lean and fit, she always had looked healthy… not anymore, Marinette was too skinny for her own good, it wasn’t an abysmal change, but Adrien could tell that she wasn’t eating well. That theory gained force if you looked at Marinette’s skin; she was pale like a ghost.

Adrien stopped at that, though.  

He looked at his own hands and found a glass to see his reflection on. He could see himself –for what he was thankful- but he didn’t look any different. Marinette looked more like he thought a ghost would be, and he a real ghost looked just as lively as he had looked before.

_A ghost… how did his life end up to be like this?_

Okay, bad pun, he recognized it, and the timing wasn’t right, Ladybug was right when she said—

“Ladybug…” His heart stopped, in the lyrical sense of it, he didn’t have a pumping heart anymore.

How hadn’t he thought about Ladybug? How couldn’t he think what she was feeling after his death?

Oh, my!

She had to know who he was, she had had to find out like everybody else did.

Ladybug, her partner, the girl he was in love with knew he was dead.

She knew he had died in an akuma attack… he didn’t want to think how she was feeling right now.

They may have kept their identities secret, it was the smart thing to do after all, but they have promised to reveal them when the timing was right, after defeating Papillon, after winning and celebrating. They had it planned.

At least, Adrien had it planned, and it was going to be one of the best nights of their lives, they would talk and laugh and enjoy each other’s company as civilians for the first time in his life. He could have invited her on a date, a real date!

Now all of it was gone, just like all his loved ones thought he was.

Adrien wanted to cry, he felt like dropping every single awful feeling, the kind of feelings that were eating him from the inside out, but nothing happened. Adrien Agreste couldn’t cry, and that made him want to cry more.

Adrien stood in the middle of the corridor, people passing by, and thought no one could see him none of them pass through him or felt cold like movies showed. It was like they knew he was there in the middle, and changed their routes a little bit to the left, a few steps to the right.

Adrien let his body hit the ground, with his hands in fits and all the rage pouring and burning like a supernova about to collapse, Adrien shouted, calling for Ladybug.

He wasn’t gone, not completely, but she was. She had evaporated from his life in the same way she had fallen into it.

“Ladybug, Ladybug, Ladybug… _I’m so, so sorry_ ” Adrien rubbed his tearless eyes and took a deep breath that he didn’t need but that felt necessary to keep going.

He stood up and looked at the horizon, his sight stumbling with Marinette.

Marinette was a few meters away from him, nailed to the floor with her mouth hanging open and tears running from her eyes like an endless storm.

She was shaking and sobbing, trying to keep herself together, but failing miserably at it. Her hands were against her mouth, trying to muffle any sound and at the same time she was trying to maintain a steady breath, it wasn’t a surprise that she wasn’t succeeding.

What had happened? Adrien stopped looking at her for one minute and hell had turned loose in front of his eyes.

Alya was taking Marinette by her shoulders trying to bring her back to reality but Marinette was out. Completely and totally out of this world, consumed in her own pain.

Adrien didn’t know how to deal with this. What stage are you Marinette? How can I help?

Not the first one, Marinette was with Alya and she had acknowledged his death. Not anger, Marinette was calm in that sense. Maybe just like Alya she was barging? That made sense, Marinette could obsess over things in the same way that Alya did, but something inside of Adrien told him that this wasn’t the case.

Marinette was destroyed… Could Marinette be in the fourth stage of grief? Was Marinette _depressed_? Could that happen in a week?

Adrien couldn’t tell. But if Marinette was falling apart, he didn’t want to think of how Ladybug was dealing with his death.

Yes, Marinette had a crush on him, which meant her feelings were quite different from the others, but while they were close friends and they got along, Ladybug and he shared a different, and much stronger, bond.

It was essential for him to figure it out in which stage Marinette stood because that would help him to imagine where Ladybug could be.

But…why was it so hard to place Marinette into a category? Why was it so hard to recognize those details in her? Was because there wasn’t any more of the Marinette that he knew shining on the surface? Was it because Marinette was no longer recognizable?

_Why? Why? Why?_

He couldn’t check her into one, but he was sure in which one she wasn’t.

The fifth stage of grief: acceptance.

The stage everyone hopes to reach in the near future, a stage everyone chases and wants to land hands on, the stage that would take the raw pain of mourning.

Marinette wasn’t at that stage, no one reached that stage because that stage is a _lie._

It shouldn’t be a stage at all, more like a bonus point in the path of death, because not everyone reaches this point.

Was it even possible? To accept that someone you loved with every cell of your being had just stopped breathing? It was no more smiles or tears, no more crazy stories or watching movies together, it was saying goodbye to routines and intern jokes.

It wasn’t just saying goodbye to a person; it was saying goodbye to the part of them who lived inside you.

You were trapped in four horrible stages that only opened more wounds that the ones that already existed, falling on a loop of pain, anger, and questions that you didn’t want.

The fifth stage, the one who offered you liberation from the chains of mourning, it was a lie. You were inside grief forever, and they just used different names to categorize the pain.

The fifth stage was a lie; an unreachable goal for every one of the contestants on the race. The stage he wished all of his friends could be in was a lie.

The fifth stage is _a cruel terrible fucking lie._

**_xx_ **

  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I know, I know, Nino is totally OOC, but understand him HE IS IN PAIN! HE LOST HIS BESTIE :(  
> Chloé is OOC too, well it's been a few years and I like to think she is gonna grow up a little and see that being a brat doesn't get you anywhere... now why she is helping Marinette? it's not out of the blue ;)  
> So, basically we focused on everyone in some way or another (Not Nathanaël bc he is not much of plot device but hey he still has a scene bc i like him)  
> This chapter was a pain bc I had a good idea of what I wanted to do, yet it was impossible to portray it in the way that I wanted bc all of these other ideas kept appearing and it was a mess, but it ended up fine I think!
> 
> Thank you for the lovely comments and support!!!  
> Idk when will I post bc this is not the main story I'm focused on but I'm finishing it (i have soo many plans for this tbh)  
> Well, you can find me on tumblr if you want to know more ---buginettte  
> All my love and happy holiday season!!! Wish you all the best! xx


	4. FLIGHT DELAYED

**Summary for the Chapter:**

> “it took one second to love you  
>  a million more to forget   
> you say it’s been forever  
> but time hasn’t moved on just yet”

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> hello, bet you had seen the last of me...

There are 60 seconds in a minute, 3.600 seconds in an hour and 86.400 seconds in a day. That makes 2.592.000 seconds in a month and 31.536.000 seconds in a year.

Seconds are a short measure of time, but they are not the smallest one so you can perceive them as they pass by. 

You can count them and use them in your favor if you want to. But there are moments when you are not aware of them, there are moments when those little numbers become too much to handle and you stop counting them and start to look into bigger fractions of time, fractions that are easier to handle in your daily life. Because, if we are being honest, no one is counting their life in seconds, we don’t really perceive them in their real measure of time… how _ sad _ . 

Maybe if we were more aware of how important seconds are and we learned to measure them right, we wouldn’t end up in such horrible situations.

There are decisions that can be made in the heat of a second, those decisions change the seconds to come, the seconds that will turn into minutes, hours, days, weeks and so on. 

Seconds are the base of change and we are unaware of it.

A decision made in a second can twist your world for good or for bad. The repercussions of a decision made in a second can stay forever, whatever you like it or not. 

That’s why is so important to know the weight a second can have. Sometimes a second is enough to make an important decision. There are situations where you don’t need a whole second to do it, your brain goes faster than the second can run, those kinds of situations aren’t ruled by logic but by instinct, by that feeling that takes over your body and blurs your common sense. 

The question is, are those really decisions? Because they don’t feel like one when you look back.

For example, Adrien didn’t recall taking the decision of jumping off of the building two weeks ago. If he went back and tried to play the memories in his mind, there wasn’t a moment when his brain thought about the situation. 

No. He had seen a civilian in the building in front of him, the building that was burning down. 

He saw the boy scream and kick, trying to get out of the rubble he was under.

There was no time to think what he could do, someone was in trouble and he could help so that’s what his instinct told him to do. He just jumped.

It hadn’t been a decision, it had been pure instinct. If he had thought about it, he wouldn’t have died, if he had been paying attention he would have heard her call her magical cure, he would have known that the post he was about to grab would disappear, and he wouldn’t have died.

_ If only. _

There are decisions that you take in a second, but that you are not meant to take in that short period of time.

Adrien could see it now.

In front of his eyes, the consequences of his poorly made choice were playing as he was in a cinema. He would have to keep contemplating it for all the seconds to come in the future of what he believed would be a long, long existence. 

The ultimate movie with no finale.  

He wished he could put a stop to the suffering his friends were living, or fasten the seconds to watch them move on quickly. He wished nothing but them to be okay, especially after today.

One of the worst things of today had been Nino. To see him so angry that he lashed out at Marinette and Alya hurt. 

Never in a million years he would have pictured Nino as the angry mess he was today, that was the opposite of what Nino’s essence was. He was caring and funny, a total gentleman who would have never rose his voice to anyone, no matter how disrespectful they were being with him. God damn, Nino treated his father with respect and put on a smile for him even when he knew that Gabriel couldn’t stand him. The Nino he had seen that day was a horrible version of his best friend, a version that wouldn’t exist if Adrien was still alive.  

This was his fault, and he wanted to fix it.

He had been thinking about it the whole day, as he watched his friends suffer. In the background of his mind, he tried to look for a solution, a way to contact them and tell them he was okay -well, as okay as he could be- and that they shouldn’t destroy themselves for him. But no matter how much he gave it a thought, he hadn’t come up with a good idea. 

He had given up already, and then… then Marinette happened.

Marinette was still in the middle of the hallway, but she wasn’t standing anymore, she was on the ground, sobbing uncontrollably. Her hands were no longer in her mouth but in fists against her chest, grabbing the black hoodie she was wearing. Her eyes were looking to every corner on the room like she was looking for something like she was looking for… him.

_ Could that be the reason? Was it too crazy to think that Marinette could have heard him scream? _

“Marinette!” He shouted.

He tried one,

two,

three times.

But it is useless. 

Alya was right behind her, hugging her from her back and calling her name. Chloé had made another wild, and surprising apparition and was trying to bring Marinette back to reality by talking to her. Marinette couldn’t hear him even if she tried.

He was so dumb. 

There was no way Marinette could hear him, it was just a sad coincidence. It was just the timing.

**xx**

After crying for what she felt like an eternity but had been only ten minutes, Marinette came back to class.

Chloé and Alya guided her through the hallways and into her classroom, making sure the agitated girl wouldn’t start crying again. They kept saying it was an illusion, they kept saying it was all in her head, they kept saying she had imagined it.

Adrien wasn’t there.

But she had been so sure… maybe it was bad timing, maybe when she had been thinking about Adrien calling her name he had happened to hear someone with a similar voice and she confused it.  

Maybe someone had seen an actual ladybug and she had confused their screams with Adrien’s voice… maybe it was her mind playing tricks with her heart.

She tried to come up with millions of excuses but nothing could kill the recurrent thoughts of Adrien’s voice. A voice so desperate and raw, trying to call her attention.

Marinette wasn’t sure if she wanted that to be real or not. 

If it wasn’t then she was starting to go crazy, listening voices calling her name was something to be worried about. But, what worried her the most, as if it had been real because that meant that Adrien was still here, and that couldn’t be good.

That would make him a ghost, right? And ghost were spirits that had not found redemption, or that had died when it wasn’t their time… it meant that Marinette had let him die before it was his time.

“Mari,” She felt Alya’s hand squeezing her shoulder.

She had not realized she was crying until that moment. Their teacher was looking at her with big eyes, full of pitiful sorrow, that was the look everyone gave Marinette nowadays.

“Maybe is time for you to go home,” Alya whispered in her ear.

Marinette nodded.

She arranged her things and left the classroom without saying a word.

No one called her out, not even the teacher, they all know Marinette is better at home.

**xx**

As she walked through the grey and cold hallways in the air lingered a presence that Marinette couldn’t reach. 

It was like the wind that was knocking the windows, making them slowly smash together, invisible but announcing its existence.

It was like in the first period, in the same hallway, but instead of being loud and calling out her name, right now it felt like it was about to touch her, but it couldn’t reach her.

Marinette stopped in the middle of her walk, spinning around, looking into every direction, trying to find a clue floating, announcing that there was a secret to be discovered. But the only thing around her were the lockers on the walls, the bending machines and the safety posters about to fall off due to the lack of glue.

She sighed.

Nothing has changed and yet nothing was the same, not anymore.

She opened her purse, trying to not feel alone, she looked at the bottom of the pink rounded bag, where two magical creatures were taking a nap.

It made her smile, at least Tikki had someone to hold her.

She took a few steps further before stopping again when she realized Nino was out of his classroom.

She was not mad at Nino, but she didn’t want to see him right now either; it was better if they stayed away for a while, treating their wounds without opening new ones. They couldn’t afford to fight in these circumstances, time would give them back their friendship at some point.

Marinette hid until Nino disappeared, being left alone in the hallway one more time.

As odd and unsettling the presence had been, she started to miss it, to feel like there was something there, that something could have been Adrien, it made her heart jolt in the little joy that was still left in her heart, and with that, the guilt also sparkles.

She bit her lip and hugged her bag as close to her heart and very tight but without crashing the kwamis. She couldn’t wait to go home, she needed to leave school now.

**xx**

Adrien followed Marinette home.

He wasn’t sure why he had done it but it was too late to feel any regret, the decision of turning back should have been taken minutes ago but he had decided to follow till the end. 

After the scream, he had been sure Mari had heard him, but it was impossible, no one could, and what made Marinette so special to listen to him? 

It was ludicrous, it was just wishful thinking. 

However, he couldn’t erase the thought of his mind, so he had stayed, sitting in the same place he had been when he had shouted Ladybug’s name, waiting for an answer.

That’s when he saw Marinette walking home, and her strange behavior had convinced him to follow her.

There was something about Marinette, he wasn’t sure what it was, but that something made her different to everybody else and he had to figure it out, he had to know more.

When he walked beside her, it felt like time had stopped around them and only Marinette had grown old, she had changed in a week what others changed in years. The timing of his death hadn’t been the best for her, she had not learned everything that she needed to learn to go through a situation like this.

He felt guilty whenever he looked at her, to know that he had put this amount of pain in her tiny body made his non-beating heart crack.

Adrien saw Marinette enter home using the back door, not the bakery as she usually did. It was obvious that she was trying to avoid her parents.

Adrien wondered how were they handling the situation. Their daughter looked deader than he did, that couldn’t be a good thing for a parent to look at.

Marinette made it to her room and all strength that she had been faking disappeared. She let her body fall and crash into the wooden floor. Adrien tried to catch her but in the middle of his motion, he realized it was impossible.

Marinette sobbed, but she did not cry. She hugged her legs against her chest and she looked at a dead point in her room.

“Mari…” Adrien tried again. “Mari is me. Adrien…”

_ Useless.  _

Marinette was immobile, eyes wide open, like the ones in a broken doll.

Still, he kept calling her name. Maybe something needed to happen for her to hear him, he just has to wait for the right time.

Sadly, what caught Marinette attention was not his voice, but the bells of her phone. With that, she finally moved. She took the device from her back pocket and pressed it. She stood up and sighed.

She looked around her room before spinning on her heels and walk to her desk, taking with her the little pink bag she always carried.

Adrien followed.

He looked at the photos plastered on the walls and the designs hanging on the mood boards. He tried to touch the tools on top of the desk and tried to feel the texture of the fabrics laying around. He couldn’t feel anything, but to his surprise, he managed to move the dust in them. He looked back to share that little bit of joy, but no one could see or hear him.

He was alone, even if someone was by his side. 

Marinette didn’t know he was there, no matter how much he wanted her to hear him, she was immersed in her own little bubble. She was reading an old book, biting the tip of her thumb, fully concentrated on it.

Adrien stood behind her, so he could read what the book was about, but it was impossible. He did not recognize the signs or the language she was reading.

“I had no idea you knew another language, Mari,” He whispered in her ear. Marinette did not even flinch, but Adrien kept talking. “Remember how you begged me to help me with your Chinese? You had great pronunciation but you suck at writing,” He giggled “It’s funny because you’re great at drawing but not much at talking, so I found it---

Adrien couldn’t complete his sentence, the sound of someone hitting the ground made him turn around, startled. Marinette had the same reaction.

In front of them stood a beautiful blonde girl in a superhero suit.

“Queen Bee,” Adrien whispered. Remembering the existence of the superheroine. 

A year ago, Ladybug had brought up the idea to recruit another superhero, that would help them in particular or very difficult missions. 

He agreed but did not have much to do with it. 

Ladybug had chosen the girl and she called her whenever they needed her. He never got the chance to know her better, so the relationship was amicable but he didn’t share the bond he did with Ladybug.

Now the question was: why was she here?

“You shouldn’t skip school,” Queen Bee said to her.

“Take your own advice next time, golden locks,” The hero flicked her blonde hair at the answer, “Is this really that important Chloé?”

Adrien did not have time to process Marinette’s words. One moment she had said the name, the next the heroine was flicking her hair and going back to her civilian self, revealing herself as Adrien’s childhood’s best friend.

All this time, Queen Bee had been Chloé? Adrien choked on air. Was that even possible for a ghost?

“Yes. After your break down Pollen and I talked a little,” Chloé said, looking at the bee kwami on her shoulder, getting ready to sleep.

She rolled her eyes and sat on the edge of the desk. Looking at Marinette from there. “And I think that maybe, let’s really not forget the maybe on this, okay?”

“Okay,” Marinette half smiled. 

Adrien could kiss Chloé at that moment. Marinette had looked alive in that little second. 

Could Chloé do something like that again? It had been beautiful.

“I think you might really have heard him,” Chloé stated.

Adrien froze.  _ Heard him? _ As in him, Adrien Agreste?  _ Ghost Adrien?! _

“Why do you think that?” Marinette asked.

“You heard me? Mari, you heard me?” Adrien said at the same time. Talking to her as loud and close as he could.

“I saw you open your bag at that exact moment you heard it. I think you reached a perfect timing,”

“What do you mean?” Adrien echoed Marinette’s words.

“They are in your bag, right?” Chloé asked. 

Marinette nodded.

“In the bag? Who is in the bag?!” Adrien tried to reach the pink bag on the top of the desk, but Marinette was quicker.

She opened the purse and showed the inside to Chloé. She picked with her finger and a little shout came out of it.

“They were sleeping,” Marinette shouted as a big black furry body with cat ears came out of Marinette’s bag.

Adrien felt like his non-beating heart had stopped.

“Plagg!” He shouted, tears forming in his eyes and streaming down his cheeks. Plagg was there, Plagg was alive! But why was he with Marinette?

“And I don’t care because I have questions!” Chloé said back “You were there when Marinette had her break down, did you hear anything?”

Plagg looked down as if he was ashamed. That wasn’t a usual look for him. 

The kwami turned around and looked straight into Adrien’s eyes.

“Plagg?” Adrien stuttered. It wasn’t like he was looking at a random point on the wall, he was looking at him, this couldn’t be a coincidence “Can you see me? Can you hear me?”

“Hey, fur-ball, I made a question!” Chloé shouted. Marinette stood up, placed her hands on Chloé’s shoulders and squeezed.

“I heard you,” Plagg said, still looking at the blonde “I won’t answer to you. If Ladybug wants the answers then I will provide the answers for her, but I won’t say a single word to you, brat,”

“Hey!” Chloé took the kwami by his ears “Don’t talk to me like that,”

“Ladybug?” Adrien asked. He looked at his kwami, then at Marinette. Could it be that… No, no, no. But what if? “Plagg, I can tell you see me, I don’t know if you hear but if you do you need to answer me, please. Is Marinette Ladybug? Please answer me this, I need to know. Please, Plagg.”

Adrien became unaware of the discussion between Marinette and Chloé, he couldn’t hear them and he did not realize when Chloé turned back into a superhero and left the room. He did not realize when Marinette started crying and ran to her bathroom because he was only looking at his kwami. The kwami who was not answering any of the questions he was shouting, the kwami who did not move but kept looking at him without flinching or blinking.

“Plagg, please!” Adrien fell to his knees and sobbed. “Why won’t you answer me?!”

Suddenly, Plagg spoke “It’s not the right time,”

Adrien looked up, trying to find where he was floating before. But he wasn’t there, he was once again right in front of his eyes.

“When will be the right time?” Adrien asked. This would confirm if he had imagined the answer or not.

“When you decide it is,” Plagg answered. “Look back, put the pieces together and find the right time.”

Adrien frowned. Decisions and timing? Wasn’t those the reasons who made him be in this situation? He wasn’t good with those.

He was going to be trapped forever and Plagg wasn’t going to help him.

Adrien looked at the clock hanging on the wall. He could hear it tick but couldn’t see it move… how was he going to know when was the right time when time didn’t pass for him?

  
  


**Notes for the Chapter:**

> i love this story so much and im so sad i left it behind for so long. i really like the way im writing this story so i didn't want to ruin it with any impulsive idea since i feel like any little detail could ruin the outcome, and the chapter was never ever right until, well, now. also live happens you know  
> so here it is :) im gonna try to focus again on this fic, i can't promise tho since my main fic is still "remember me?" but as i said, i love the way im writing this (every chapter has a theme and the plot moves around it, instead of different sub-plots around the plot) so yeah whatevs here it is.  
> hope you enjoy!  
> find me on tumblr: buginettte

**Author's Note:**

> I want'to inform (or remind if you have read my fics before) that english is not my first language so I'm sorry if there're any mistakes, and also no beta bc i suck at being social, anyways, you can point out if I have mistakes and help me out with constructive critic if you want to, I'm always happy to learn (just be nice?) and that i guess??? have a nice day!!
> 
> find me on tumblr @buginettte !  
> xx


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